Mason Steam Locomotives

I live about 15 miles from the site of the Mason factory - all is gone now - they were the Cadillacs of their era. To my knowledge only 2 survive of the almost 800 built. From what I can gather many locomotives were used 15 to 20 years, depending on weather and loads they hauled. To see a Mason locomotive in action watch - The Great Locomotive Chase with Fess Parker. The William Mason built in 1856 acts as The General.

This book was a must have for me. Working as a railroader and being able to operate and maintain the last surviving example of a mason bogie it was fitting that I have this book!

A good basic history about an unusual constructor.

From the vantage point of roughly 135 - 150 years later, with the benefit of near term / hindsight memory, especially for rail fans and railroad historians, it is easy to dismiss, out of ignorance, the locomotive designs of William Mason.As children, most rail fans and railroad historians learn of the various technologies of the rail industry from their parents and grand parents taking them out to see trains, or hear stories about past railroad technologies from their parents and grand parents.The problem with the most celebrated product of William Mason which was the "Mason Bogie," is that in the working memory of most rail fans and rail historians these locomotives existed in the reality beyond their family memory. These locomotives existed in the life of their great great great grand parents nearly 15 decades ago.Yet the "Mason Bogie," was a surprisingly advanced locomotive for its day; resting on a fixed frame upon which the tender truck and the "power truck" consisting of the driving wheels and steam cylinders/ pistons/ rods/ etc. swiveled, like a diesel of today, in order to deal with track that might not be well lined up.Other than the "Mason Bogie," rescued by the Henry Ford Museum, none exist any more and none other has really existed for nearly 80 years, and realistically these locomotives were already rare before 100 years ago. Take that with the fact that the last one before the only surviving example in the Henry Ford Museum, was scrapped in Iowa during a World War II scrap drive, so realistically we can say that Mason Locomotives existed on a planet somewhere else far far away.The only other existing Mason Locomotive, a non "Mason Bogie," design dates from the 1850's and rests in the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum. It too was advanced for its day. But "The William Mason" (the museum named the locomotive after its maker) appears to be quaint, to us in the far future, when it is parked next to the steam locomotives that were created 50-75 years later, that we see at the museum or on steam powered rail trips that we are much more familiar with.Not too many rail fans and rail historians have a direct connection with a great and a great great great grandfather to learn of these wonderful machines.Thus we in 2013 may dismiss or judge them harshly in comparison to what we may know, such as the monster locomotives called "Big Boy" on the Union Pacific, or the narrow gauge locomotives still operating in Colorado, that the Rio Grande created in the 1920's, a full fifty years after the heyday of the Mason Locomotive.All because we don't know.This book corrects that deficiency in rail road locomotive technology understanding.The author has spent 50 plus years of his life painstakingly gathering up the fragments of the historical record and assembling them together into a comprehensive history of the locomotives designed and built by William Mason before he died in 1883.If you are student of the history of the evolution of steam powered locomotive technologies, this book deserves a premier place on your book shelf.While it is true, every thing with steam locomotives got much bigger and more sophisticated in the late 1890's and beyond, long after the Mason Locomotives, with things like feed water heaters, or, for example combinations of high pressure and low pressure cylinders to make articulated locomotives, it was the Mason Locomotives that laid the ground work for such technological advances.This book lays out, in a most comprehensive way, why these locomotives were considered the best and most advanced locomotives of the era.You owe it to yourself, to read this book, if you consider yourself to be a "student" or authority on steam locomotives in North America.Sometimes the past, when well researched and presented in words, tables, diagrams and photos, that exist no where else has much to teach us.This book is a prime example of how an author can take something he clearly loves and evolve it from a very personal collection of information into a well organized book, which is the primary resource on the topic of Mason Steam Locomotives.

Excellent Reference!